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the  day  indicated  beloW 


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THE  COUTTTRY  CHURCH 


Volume  5 


4 


ol 


V.  3 


Federal  oouncil  of  the  churches  of  Christ  in 
America,  What  every  church  should  know  about 
its  community. 

General  Association  of  Congregational  Churches 
of  Massachusetts,  Advance  reports  of  various 
committees,  1908  and  1909 

McElfresh,  F^  The  country  Sunday  school 

MclTutt,  M.  B.  Modern  methods  in  the  country  church 

McUutt ,  M^  B,  A  post-graduate  school  with  a  xrarr^ose 

Massachusetts  Federation  of  Churches,  Quarterly 
"bulletin.  Facts  and  factors »  Octoher  1910 
**The  part  of  the  church  in  rural  progress  as 
discussed  at  the  Amherst  Conference." 

Root,  E*  T»  Btate  federations 

Taf t ,  A»  B,  The  mistress  of  the  rural  manse 

Taf t ,  A.  B,  The  tent  mission 

Taylor,  G.  Basis  for  social  evangelism  with  rural 
applications 

Wells,  G,  F.  An  answer  to  the  ITew  England  country 
church  question* 

Wells,  G«  F«  V/hat  our  country  churches  need 

Wilson,  W.  H»  The  church  and  the  transient 

Wilson,  W.  H,  Conservation  of  boys 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  country  church 

Wilson,  W»  H.  The  country  church  program 

Wilson,  W,  H.  Don*t  breathe  on  the  thermometer 

Wilson,  W,  H.  The  farmers*  church  and  the  farmers' 
^  college 

t—i 

CO    Wilson,  W,  H»  Getting  the  worker  to  church 
o- 

Ui 


Wilson,  W.  H»  The  girl  on  the  farm 

Wilson  J  W.  H»  How  to  manage  a  country  life 
institute 

Wilson,  W.  11.  ^'Marrying  the  land." 

Wilson,  W.  H.  tTo  need  to  he  i.^oor  in  the  country 

Wilson,  W.  H.  Synod's  opportunity 

Wilson,  W«  H»  What  limits  the  rural  Evangel 


•«*»«««* 


The  church,  and  country  life.  Pamphlet  issued 
hy  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Preshy- 
terian  Church* 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  Member  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/noneedtobepoorin03wils 


no  NEED  TO  BE  POOR  IF  THE 
COUHTRY 

by  Warren  H,  Wilson .Ph.D. 


There  should  be  none  poor  in  a  country 
neighborhood •   Among  successful  farming  people 
no  one  is  poor.   It  is  essential  to  good  farming 
such  as  is  handed  down  from  father  to  son  and 
grandson,  that  no  one  is  poor  in  the  community. 
There  is  something  in  the  process  of  good  agri- 
culture which  distributes  a  living  income  to 
everybody.   The  country  has  been  the  poor  man*s 
mode  of  finding  an  estate.   I  believe  that  farm- 
ing offers  this  possibility  to  the  poor  in  per- 
manent promise  for  endless  generations. 

Poverty  in  the  country  is  more  terrible 
than  in  the  city.   It  can  be  hid  from  no  one. 
Cne*s  near  neighbors  in  the  country  are  nearer 
to  him  than  kinsfolk.   An  old  lumberman  ex- 
pressed this  about  the  children  of  his  shiftless 
neighbor.   "Them  children  come  into  my  house  at 
breakfast  and  watch  every  bite  go  down  my  throat" 
The  spectacle  of  poor  neighbors  has  no  screen 
over  it  in  the  country*  Rural  slums  cannot  be 
well  hidden.  Everybody  in  the  community  is  de- 
pendent upon  everybody  else  for  the  conditions 
of  life,  so  that  poverty  in  any  household  is  a 
degradation  and  a  detriment  to  every  other 
household. 

In  good  farming  communities  which  have  for 
generations  got  a  distributed  income  out  of  the 
soil,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  charity  among 
the  people  of  the  community.   Such  a  neighbor- 
hood acquires  ways  of  mutual  aid  which  have  the 
assent  of  every  one.   They  are  like  those  in- 
stincts which  cause  people  in  the  country  to 
come  together  for  a  barn  raising,  to  put  out  a 
fire,  or  doctor  a  sick  horse.   The  man  of  small 
estate  in  the  country  is  ready  to  save  his 
neighbor's  thoroughbred  horse  from  the  colic, 
and  expects  no  pay  for  the  service.   He  is  like- 
wise unashamed  if  when  his  own  solitary'-  animal 
dies  his  neighbor  subscribes  to  purchase  another 
horse.   Country  neighborhoods  have  an  instinct 
of  mutual  insurance  against  the  calamities  of 
life.   The  exigencies  of  their  struggle  with 
nature  teach  them  certain  common  actions  on 
which  life  itself  depends.   Just  as  anybody  in 
the  community  would  sit  up  at  night  with  a  sick 


horse  or  a  sick  man,  so  anybody  in  the  community 
would  expect  from  his  neighbor  that  assistance 
which  protects  him  against  poverty ^  provided 
only  a  community  spirit  is  cultivated  and  neigh- 
borly feeling  is  general. 

This  kind  of  thing  is  usually  taught  to  a 
neighborhood  by  a  church  or  by  some  early  leaders 
who  may  themselves  have  passed  away,  but  its  in* 
fluence  is  not  confined  to  the  church  members  or 
to  the  followers  of  that  leader,  as  years  pass. 
Neighborly  action  knows  no  doctrine.   It  cannot 
be  organized,  for  it  moves  by  instincts,  not  upon 
reason  alone. 

Of  course  a  neighborhood  is  like  a  beehive. 
Foreign  objects  may  get  in  sometimes  and  inter- 
fere, but  the  diligent  feelings  of  the  country- 
side will  surround  the  intruder  with  a  cell  of 
wax  and  shut  him  out  from  controlling  the  neigh- 
borhood.  I  have  kno'ATi  a  summer  hotel  to  have 
its  own  charities  and  its  alien  objects  of 
benevolence,  but  the  community,  aside  from  these 
pitiful  and  artificial  creatures,  had  none  poor. 
Among  the  farmers  there  was  no  pauper,  though 
the  wealthy  people  from  the  city  could  not  have 
a  comfortable  summer  without  somebody  dependent 
upon  their  patronage. 

There  will  always  be  people  in  eYery   com- 
munity who  have  little.  Most  people  are  inca- 
pable of  saving  money  and  very  few  have  capaci- 
ty to  get  rich,  but  everybody  who  is  not  defec- 
tive can  possess  enough  of  productive  land  or 
tools  to  keep  him  from  pauperism.   This  should 
be  the  ideal  in  every  countryside. 

The  abolition  of  pauperism  is  possible  in 
the  country,  and  the  church  should  set  itself 
this  ideal.   Hew  shall  it  be  accomplished.  By 
a  steadfast  policy  and  persistent  teaching,  not 
of  thrift  and  accumulation,  but  of  the  value  of 
self-respecting  small  property  and  by  something 
more  than  teaching.   The  church  in  the  country 
should  inspire  in  the  mind  of  every  man  in  the 
community,  the  desire  to  possess  enough  to  keep 
him  out  of  want.   This  does  not  mean  a  store  be- 
side which  he  can  live  in  idleness,  but  it  means 
the  tools  by  means  of  which  he  can  thrive  through 
diligence.   The  ideal  for  every  man  in  the  country 
community  should  be  to  possess  productive  land  or 
tools,  without  fear  and  without  admitting  excep- 
tions.  The  country  minister  should  teach  to  every- 
body in  the  countryside  a  doctrine  of  industry,  of 
productive  work  and  of  self-respect  based  upon  the 
use  of  productive  land  or  tools. 

When  accident  comes  to  any  member  of  the  com- 
munity the  minister  and  his  church  should  summon 


all  the  neighbors  to  replace  the  property  des- 
troyed.  The  poor  man's  horse,  his  cow,  his  barn, 
his  cobbler's  shop  or  blacksmith  shop  constitute 
his  protection  against  pauperism.   If  these  pro- 
ductive tools  be  lost,  he  has  no  self-respecting 
means  of  living.   If  the  acre  upon  which  a  widow 
subsists  by  diligent  thrift  be  taken  from  her  on 
account  of  debt,  she  must  bow  her  head  and  beg. 
If  her  acre  can  be  kept  in  her  possession  by  an 
act  of  the  countryside  on  her  behalf,  she  will 
never  need  to  beg.   She  may  be  sometimes  hungry 
and  may  always  be  pinched,  but  she  will  never  be 
a  pauper. 

The  Christian  religion  is  not  a  religion  for 
paupers,  but  it  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  pover- 
ty •   The  Christian  churches  are  all  of  them  his-     i 
torical  records  of  the  fight  of  a  population 
against  pauperism  and  want.   The  Christian  churches 
have  done  pretty  well.   They  are  not  poor  any  longer i 
Some  of  their  members,  if  anything,  are  too  rich.    f 
But  they  must  not  forget  that  the  discipline  of  the 
Christian  religion  that  is  in  the  world  to-day  has 
been  attained  in  the  struggle  against  poverty.   It 
has  been  a  hard  struggle,  but  it  has  been  good.  In 
the  country  community  this  struggle  need  not  result 
in  failure,  as  so  often  it  does  in  the  city.   No     / 
one  need  be  poor  in  the  country.   In  the  experience^ 
of  contending  with  poverty  the  religious  life  of 
country  people  will  be  enriched,  their  neighborly 
feeling  made  tender-  and  their  conviction  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  made  bright.   As  Jesus  said, 
"Blessed  are  the  poor,  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom 
of  God," 


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